Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
Love to see it. I haven’t used MS Office in well over a decade at this point and I have no plans to go back. LibreOffice is fantastic, suits all my needs, doesn’t pack itself with bloat and it respects my freedom and privacy. What more can I want from an office suite?
Microsoft is going to make the S, E, A, R, and . characters subscription only for $1.99 / month.
So we’ll have to go to libre office to spell arse?
Correct, you can call Microsoft arse and any variant thereof for free on LibreOffice.
I’ve gradually been switching over. The UI is somewhat confusing in my experience- but the MSO UX+UI is consistently getting much, much worse as time passes
nice hahaha
Sure, to avoid costs…
They really don’t see the connection with the trade war, buy european movement, boycott america movement, trump presidency in general… Really? Or could it be the editor told them not to mention it?
Came here to say this. The headline is misleading, the costs have been there for years. The thing that has changed are millions of Europeans and Canadians looking for American alternatives.
There was another article I saw related to a massive drop (over 70%!) in bookings between Canada and the US. It didn’t mention the reason for the drop in bookings. Not sure why the media is so reluctant to cover the massive American boycotts that are underway at the moment, especially on articles covering the impact.
None of those have much real impact outside internet noise compared to people seeing their bank accounts drain.
I’ve been leaving corpo shit behind for years as a personal boycott, but even I found it much easier to invest time and effort moving off paid services than free ones because of a perceived material benefit beyond smug self-satisfaction.
As someone who has recently cancelled my Microsoft subscription and switched to libre office I can vouch that it was not the subscription cost that made me switch.
You’re looking for enemies where there are none. I’m not a medical professional, but I assume this amount of paranoia is not good for your mental health and well-being. Just take the article for what it is: a win for free software
Sure, it is a win. And thank you for the wise words.
But to me it seems that many are looking to reduce dependency on US tech.
Unfortunately, world is such state that a little paranoia is warranted. If Snowden was not a wakeup call, now I finally feel there is a real movement to try to reduce the dependency. Keep in mind that the US currently threatens EU with occupation of Greenland and sides with our enemy.
But all that said, thank you again, kind stranger.
Haven’t used ms products in a decade.
My Microsoft boycott was longerIt doesn’t surprise me, Microsoft is enshitifying everything they have.
Holy shit 1mill a week? That’s huge
Yeah I’m wondering for how many weeks.
And then how many millions of ms office users there are? (Or billions…)
I mean does it matter? Any open source program competing with THE established office suite that literally everyone learns getting that kind of adoption is insane. This is like an open source video game console competing with Sony.
Oh it’s great news either way. I’d just be curious about the numbers.
And maybe those are only the ones that download it directly. But every Linux user downloads it from other repos.
Obligatory comment that endorses pirating software. We need to make sure this stereotype about Lemmy remains accurate.
Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by
offering non-subscription optionsinventing a new proprietary industry-standard file format so their bloated ransomware remains mandatory.Fortunately platforms like docs are providing sufficient competition that I don’t think they’d be able to lock it down as effectively as they once could.
They’ll have to settle for “warning” the user if they detect a file that was made by libreoffice.
The warning can be disabled from the settings
It’s still enabled by default and acts as FUD for the average user who won’t know to disable it and will get spooked by it.
That it can be opted out of doesn’t change its propaganda value at all.
I agree, I would never give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt.
Is it the best free option? It works fairly well although I can still kill it sometimes.
I know there’s a few other alternatives like OnlyOffice, wps office etc but these might be freemium.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/13/libreoffice_wasm_zetaoffice/
Native Realtime collaboration on documents and spreadsheets is the last feature holding us back from switching in business environments.
Collabora office
I like LibreOffice, but I prefer Onlyoffice.
Good. Finally. It’s about time.
Is it finally the year of foss? I love LibreOffice and started using it years back for personal use not wanting to bother with buying another Microsoft Office version once the one I had stopped getting security updates.
